This invention relates to a method and apparatus for displaying information in an electronic display of limited display size.
Shown in FIG. 1 is an application for a hand-held device in which a piece of student work is being scored along a number of dimensions or attributes. As is typical of the current state of the art, the attribute/value pairs in this application are xe2x80x9chiddenxe2x80x9d behind a pair of interface controls. The upper control 100 shows the currently selected attribute, in this case xe2x80x9cApproach and Reasoningxe2x80x9d. The lower control 101 shows the value currently associated with this attribute, in this case xe2x80x9c3xe2x80x9d.
To select another attribute in this environment, the user would typically click on the upper control""s downward pointing triangle, 102. This would cause the list of all attributes 103 to be displayed as shown in FIG. 2.
clicking on one of the list elements would switch the currently selected attribute to this attribute. Assume in this case that the third element in the list 104 was tapped. The current state of this xe2x80x9cSolutionxe2x80x9d attribute 105 is xe2x80x9cNot Scoredxe2x80x9d. This is depicted in FIG. 3.
Let us assume that the user of this application was interrupted at this point and returned to the application several minutes later. How would the user know what had been scored? If the user had been rigorous about scoring items in order (not the case here), the user would know which attribute to score next by examining the popped up list of attributes and selecting the one after the one they saw in the control itself. But, if the user adopted the quite reasonable approach of ordering their scoring of the individual attributes by some other scheme (as was the case here) the user would have no way of knowing how much he/she had completed other than by examining each attribute in turn while trying to remember the completion status of each attribute.
It is an object of this invention to facilitate display of multidimensional information on an electronic display of limited display size.
Limited display size on pervasive computing devices such as the IBM Workpad make it hard to display multidimensional information. While it is possible to switch between dimensions or attributes, it is difficult to know which attributes you have viewed or acted upon and similarly difficult to know where in the overall set of dimensions you are currently operating (that is, is it the first one, the last one, the one in the middle of the set etc.). This invention is a user interface control that makes it easy to see this information at a glance while also allowing rapid and direct switching between attributes based on position in the set (which takes advantage of human perception and muscle memory). This control is especially advantageous for the small displays of pervasive computing devices, but is not limited to use on these devices.
More specifically, with this invention, an array of geometric elements is formed where each of the elements represents an attribute and where the position of each of the elements in the array represents its position in a list of attributes. Also, each element has graphical information indicating the state of the attribute which it represents.
Each of the elements can also be made user selectable so as to provide further information about a specific attribute.
Shown in FIG. 1 is an application for a hand-held device in which a piece of student work is being scored along a number of dimensions or attributes. As is typical of the current state of the art, the attribute/value pairs in this application are xe2x80x9chiddenxe2x80x9d behind a pair of interface controls. The upper control 100 shows the currently selected attribute, in this case xe2x80x9cApproach and Reasoningxe2x80x9d. The lower control 101 shows the value currently associated with this attribute, in this case xe2x80x9c3xe2x80x9d.
To select another attribute in this environment, the user would typically tap on the upper control""s downward pointing triangle, 102. This would cause the list of all attributes 103 to be displayed as shown in FIG. 2.
Tapping on one of the list elements would switch the currently selected attribute to this attribute. Assume in this case that the third element in the list 104 was tapped. The current state of this xe2x80x9cSolutionxe2x80x9d attribute 105 is xe2x80x9cNot Scoredxe2x80x9d. This is depicted in FIG. 3.
Let us assume that the user of this application was interrupted at this point and returned to the application several minutes later. How would the user know what had been scored? If the user had been rigorous about scoring items in order (not the case here), the user would know which attribute to score next by examining the popped up list of attributes and selecting the one after the one they saw in the control itself. But, if the user adopted the quite reasonable approach of ordering their scoring of the individual attributes by some other scheme (as was the case here) the user would have no way of knowing how much he/she had completed other than by examining each attribute in turn while trying to remember the completion status of each attribute.